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Will Clipman Critics have dubbed Will Clipman a "renaissance man," "percussionist extraordinaire," "master improvisor/musical collaborator," "jack-of-all-arts," and "the perfect partner," "noted for his fluid ability to find just the right beat no matter what the venue." Will's love affair with drums began at the age of three, when he took it upon himself to begin playing his father's vintage Slingerland Radio King trapset. Childhood flirtations with piano and trumpet gave him a theoretical foundation and a brass embouchure, but his real passion was percussion.

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Having completed two years of jazz drum studies at the East Shore Conservatory of Music, Will played his first professional gig at age fourteen, embarking on a long and varied exploration of rock, pop, R&B, soul, blues, jazz, reggae, Afro-Cuban, East Indian, and classical idioms. What was then called "fusion" music introduced Will to what is now called "world" music, and he became particularly enamored of the polyrhythmic drumming of sub-Saharan West Africa. Apprenticeships with master drummers Cornelius Kweku Ganyo and Abdulai Aziz Ahmed infused Will with the folkloric and spiritual tradition of the drum, and taught him specific techniques of drum construction and tuning. Will has since expanded his instrumental repertoire to include not only the drum family - - traps, congas, djembe, doumbek, talking drum, udu, songba, powwow drum, Taos drums, bodhran - but also balafon (tuned mallet percussion), berimbau (single-stringed bow harp), didjeridu (Aboriginal Australian horn), Pima flute, three-chambered ocarina, and synthesizer, as well as a multi-cultural arsenal of rattles, shakers, scrapers, chimes, gongs, cymbals, bells, and rhythm sticks.

Along the way, Will has contributed his talents to the performances and recordings of many artists, bands, and ensembles, including R. Carlos Nakai, William Eaton, Street Pajama, The Resistors, Rainer & Das Combo, If, School of Life, Brain Damage Orchestra, Joy Bones, Hipster Dogma, Griffinfish, Adzido, Nanfoule, Orts Theater of Dance, Zenith Dance Collective, Xanadu Dance Company, and A.K.A. Theater.

He has released three solo recordings of his own original compositions: Nerve Chorus, (Arizona Daily Star "Best Local Recording of the Year," 1985), Philadelphia, and Bone Fire.

Will currently performs, records, and tours regionally and nationally with the Nakai-Eaton-Clipman Trio (whose Canyon Records Productions album Feather, Stone & Light spent thirteen weeks on the Billboard New Age Chart), the "SynthacousticpunkarachiNavajazz" ensemble Jackalope, the world chamber music group William Eaton Ensemble, the Southwestern urban folk band Stefan George & Songtower, the jazz-pop fusion group Desert Dream Band, and as a soloist in his own Global Village Musical Story Theater, a fanciful blend of original masks, storytelling, oral poetry, creative movement, and indigenous world music.

Will serves as house percussionist for Canyon Records Productions, having most recently contributed his talents to albums by Native American artists Sharon Burch and Robert Tree Cody. Always active as an educator, Will serves as an Artist-in-Residence with the Arizona Commission on the Arts, and as a Performing Artist with Young Audiences, providing performances, workshops, lecture, demonstrations, and residencies to students of all ages throughout Arizona.

Outside of musical circles, Will is also known as a poet, maskmaker, storyteller, and interdisciplinary performance artist. Will began writing poetry and stories at the age of six, with the inspiration and guidance of his grandmother. He edited his high school literary magazine (which nearly got him expelled because of its controversial content) and, intoxicated with the power of words to excite and illuminate, he went on to take a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Creative Writing and Magazine Journalism with Honors in English from Syracuse University, and a Master of Fine Arts Degree in Poetry from the University of Arizona. His publications include a book,Dog Light, from Wesleyan University Press, anthologies such as Syracuse Poems 1975, University of Arizona Poetry Center 1960-1985, The Ellensburg Anthology, The National Poetry Competition Winners Anthology 1991 & 1992, and Tumblewords: Writers Reading the West, and periodicals such as Ironwood, Stone Drum, Shandoka, Intro, Yakima, Obsidian, Coyote, Green Zero, Greenfield Review, Amaranth Review, Rhetoric Review, Syracuse Review, Walking Rain Review, Protea Poetry Journal, Tucson Times-Review, and Southern Poetry Review.

In 1990, Will's poem "The Quiet Power" was selected as the Dedicatory Poem for the new Tucson Main Library, and appears on a plaque in that building.

Will has taught creative writing to students in over one hundred elementary, middle and high schools as well as at the University of Arizona, Pima Community College, Kino Psychiatric Hospital, and the Arizona State Prison--where he is currently Assistant Director of the Writers Workshop in the Santa Rita Unit. He has served on the faculties of the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum Teacher Institute, Tucson Summer Fine Arts, Catalina Foothills Community School, and the Aspen Environmental Dance Symposium; as a panelist for the "Healing Through the Arts" Symposium, the Tucson/Pima Arts Council, and The Arizona Commission on the Arts; and as Poet-in-Residence for the Modern Poetry Association's "Poets in Person" Series.

Will has been a recipient of the Whiffen Poetry Prize (1975), the Academy of American Poets Margaret Sterling Award (1980), and the Tucson/Pima Arts Council Poetry Fellowship (1993).

He is currently circulating for publication a new book manuscript, Wilderness in the Marrow.

The thread that weaves together the fabric of Will's creative life is rhythm: be it a drumbeat, the cadence of a poem or story, the form and design of a mask, the movements of a dance, or simply the pulse of the heart, rhythm is the element that draws all beings together in the web of life. It is this philosophy of interconnectedness which forms the foundation of Will's artistry, be it with drumstick, voice, pen and paper, plaster and paint, or the human body. When pressed for self-description, Will says: "I originated as a rhythmic pulsation emanating from the center of the universe. My art is to sustain, refine, and enrich that quintessential rhythm."